Micachu & the Shapes - Jewellery: Album Review

If there can be a musical space where grime, punk and freak-folk meet, then it’s in Jewellery, the debut album from Micachu & the Shapes. This is a band very much of its time, with little care for genre boundaries or backward referencing. Jewellery is a roughshod collection of 12 songs that sound like they’ve been bound together with sticky tape and cheap glue. Led by 21-year-old Harry Partch fan Mica Levi, the group also contains keyboard player Raisa Khan and drummer (and leader of his own nine-piece drum ‘n’ bass band) Marc Pell. Completing this rag-tag collective is a producer: the microhouse musician of many aliases, Matthew Herbert.

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How Twitter is Shaping the Music Industry

The answer to a simple question that lies at the top of every Twitter page ("What are you doing?") is radically altering the way we process information about bands, musicians, and the music industry. The relationship between music and the internet has been guilt edged ever since MP3 files started zipping back and forth across the planet. Illegal downloading and services such as iTunes have led to a hasty shuttering of record stores, and the perennial question of how to make money from recorded music continues to confound.

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Gang Gang Dance: Interview

It’s rare to find a band that can capably mix a love of grime, hip-hop, dream-pop, Kate Bush and reggaeton into a cohesive whole. It’s been a long time in the making, but New Yorkers Gang Gang Dance have done so, and they've produced one of the year’s best records in Saint Dymphna. Putting past misfortunes behind them, such as the tragic death of singer Nathan Maddox in 2002, the band is set to reach out to a wider audience. Here, frontwoman Lizzie Bougatsos talks about making the album, leading the Boredoms' 88Boadrum event in New York this summer, and what happened to drummer Tim DeWitt in a Grand Rapids bar in July.

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The Fiery Furnaces: BBC Collective Interview/Session

“We’ve got democracy fever!” It’s election year in America, and Matthew Friedberger, multi-instrumentalist and creative mastermind behind The Fiery Furnaces, is bringing his fans to the ballot box. He’s mapping out plans for the band’s next album in his sister Eleanor’s apartment, which doubles as their practice space on the outskirts of Greenpoint in Brooklyn.

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Black Dice: BBC Collective Interview/Session

The shoebox-sized practice space that houses Brooklyn’s Black Dice is located in the basement of a dilapidated industrial building on the outskirts of still-fashionable Williamsburg. As Aaron Warren, who comprises one-third of the band along with brothers Bjorn and Eric Copeland, greets Collective, he warns of the oppressive heat and cramped quarters inside. Given the intense nature of the band’s music, the setting could hardly be more appropriate.

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